FAMILY FUN

New Zealand Tablet, 16 July 1914, Page 62

FAMILY FUN

TRICKS, ILLUSIONS, AND INDOOR AMUSEMENTS. (Special to the N.Z. Tablet by Mahatma.) A Catch. Here is a good catch which may worked on some male member of the company. Tell* him that he cannot button up his coat in the time you lake to count thirty. You win unless lie already knows the trick, because he may button his coat in thirty seconds, but in all probability he will button it down, not up, in the given time. Go If You Can.—Tell a person that you will clasp his hands together in such a manner that he will not be able to leave the room without unclasping them, although you will not bind his feet nor in any way oppose his exit. This trick is performed by clasping the victim hands round a circular table or other article too large for him to take through the doorway. To Tell the Numbers on a Pair of Dice. This is done by a simple arithmetical process. someone to throw the dice without your seeing them. Then tell him to choose one of the numbers and multiply it by two, add five, and multiply this number by five and add the number on the remaining die. On his telling you the result, you subtract, mentally, twenty-five from the number be has obtained, and the remainder will be two figures representing the two numbers on the dice. Suppose the numbers thrown to be six and three. Six multiplied by two would be twelve. Add five, and we have seventeen ; multiply this by five and the result is eight-five. Three added to this gives eight-eight. From this take twenty-five and it leaves sixty-three—six and three being the numbers thrown. This can be worked with the same result if the person throwing the dice multiplies the three instead of the six, the result in that case being thirty-six instead of sixty-three. A Good Card Trick.—Here is a card trick which may be performed by the veriest novice in magic and which will have a decidedly mystifying effect. Take the pack and have a card chosen and placed in the pack. The chooser is to remember how many cards are above it. Suppose the card is the tenth from the top. The performer takes the pack, counts off nine cards, and says: ‘The next card will be the card chosen, 1 presume.’ Tie is answered in the affirmative and turns the tenth card up, when it is seen to be a different card to the selected one. On being informed of this, the performer asks for the name of the card chosen. Suppose the answer is the ace of hearts. ‘ But,’ says the performer, ‘ that cannot be, for I have that card in my pocket.’ To prove his words, he places his hand in his coat pocket and produces the card. The secret is this; Before commencing, the conjuror places a card in 'his coat pocket. He offers the pack in order that a card may be chosen. He ascertains at what number the chosen card stands and then obtains the pocketed card. When the pack is handed back to him he secretly places this card on top. The chosen card is therefore now a card further down the pack than the chooser thinks. The cards are drawn off one by one and when the number at which the chosen card is supposed to stand is reached, the performer shows that a disappearance has taken place. Then whilst the chooser is engaged in looking through the cards taken off for his card, the performer quietly removes the top card of the pack as it now stands, and places it in his j pocket. The rest of the trick will now be quite clear.